Busy, Busy, Busy

When I first started this blog I thought "Oh yes, I can post every other night, like clockwork". Boy was I so wrong. I am learning that life kinda gets in the way of that plan. I can't believe how the days fly by. Here's a long overdue update on our adventure. :)

Chickens:

So, this morning my hubby goes to rescue the post office again from the box that will drive them crazy. If you've never heard just how loud chicks can get, especially when they are cold and hungry, you'd be in for a surprise. This box was supposed to contain 10 replacement chicks from our first order. We actually lost 16 but we just wanted to replace 10 of them. We open the box to find....not 10....not 20...but 25! Boy Murray McMurray is so on my Christmas list for next year! As nice as it was to get so many more chicks for free, we realized, we had a problem.

We had moved the 10 chicks from the first batch into their new chicken condo brooder. I swear, these chicks are livin' large. Check it out:

We put this new brooder together from cardboard boxes that we had and made the sides high so as the chicks grew out they had enough room and couldn't get out. They really had a great time exploring when we first put them in. But now....

This is what the setup looks like. Yup, a brooder within a brooder! Why? Well, this could all just be silliness on my part and a big waste of time but I wanted to be cautious. You see chicks grow fast. No I don't mean just fast. I mean super fast! Faster than I thought. And I didn't know how the new chicks would fair competing against the week old chicks for food and water. I was afraid they would get trampled on and not make it. I also wanted to feed them the mash of food with sugar water which helped the older ones so much. But, I didn't want to feed it to the older ones anymore. So, voila! The idea of the brooder hut. I figured that we could use the same heating lamp and protect the newer ones all at the same time. However, I did not expect McMurrays to be so generous and I only planned on sizing the box for 10 chicks! So, I'm hoping to only keep them in for a few days and introduce the 2 broods soon. I'll keep you updated.

Snow:

Am I the only one surprised at the amount of snow here?!? I was used to blizzards and drifts mega-feet high up north but, here? We woke up to more snow today after a storm on the weekend and apparently more coming on Tuesday. While the amounts do not even come close to what they are putting up with up north, it is surprising me a little.

I suppose I don't mind the snow so much as the cold. I am surprised at how cold it gets and the forecast is below freezing for the next few nights. All I know is, that furry Phil better be right or he's gonna get some hate mail from Arkansas.


Rabbits:

All sorts of stuff going on with the bunnies. Susie Q's 5 kits are 2 weeks and doing very well. She's such a good mom that we don't worry about her at all. She seems to know just what to do and just when to do it. For example, on Saturdays we thoroughly clean all hutches. We just spot clean throughout the week but Saturdays we get serious. Anyway, Susie Q keeps her hutch pretty clean especially the nest area. Well, I check on the babies and...surprise!...they are all uncovered and looking back at me. Just the day before she still had them all cocooned up under the nest. It seems she just knows when they are ready.
Miss Millie is due to kindle within the next day or so and I think we are in luck this time. She has the nest all prepared and is busy, busy pulling fur. A great sign and I hope to have a positive update with pictures soon! :)
In related news, but not quite so cute, we culled 5 kits on Saturday. I will admit this was a huge step for us and questions arose as to just how to go about it. I have not included pictures. I know that some people do the step-by-step thing with pics on their blogs when they butcher out their animals. I prefer to give you my impression of what the experience was for me rather than the graphic image.
I had totally focused myself on the fact that these were not pets. And for any other rookies out there, do the same. It's easier when you do not allow yourself to get too attached. I do spend time with our breeders but I purposely avoided spending too much time at the grow-out hutch. I'm glad I did. My hubby did the dispatching and did a humane and clean job of it. We both did the butchering and skinning together. It's harder to skin a rabbit than I thought but I really wanted to keep the pelts intact for use. I think we did a great job for newbies.
So, things I learned.
First, I am no butcher. I need to perfect my butchering skills to make the process faster. It's not always easy to see what you should cut where. And questions like " Is that good meat" or " What the heck is THAT!" were flying all over the place. Of course, I realize that's part of learning and overall it worked out ok.
Second, the smell! Oh gosh! I watched a hundred and one videos on butchering rabbits on youtube. I read bunches and bunches of blogs and forum info on the process. I was ready. I knew what to do. But.....the smell! No one tells you about the smell! lol    I mean, it's not god awful but it would have been nice for just one person to suggest that a little Vicks under the nose might be good. So, I am making sure I let anyone know who has not done this yet.....use the Vicks....trust me.
Third, there's a lot less meat than I thought. Overall out of five 11 week old rabbits we probably got 2.5 lbs of meat. Now, figuring in my bad butchering skills and the fact that most people wait till 12 weeks or more to cull, I can see how it's so little. But, even with those things in mind, the cost is way too much. You have to figure in all the feed to get them to the 11 weeks and, at the cost of all that, we could have been eating steak all weekend. So, we definitely have to do the calculations on it and, again, it's all part of learning.
Fourth, I like rabbit. Yup, we crock potted the meat after soaking in salt water for 12 hours as suggested. We cooked it in a onion/garlic bbq kinda sauce. It fell right off the bone and was really good. It tastes a lot like chicken but is milder. We will have the rest of it over rice tonight.
Now, would I do it again? I think so. I do think that to make it worth all the feed cost and work involved you absolutely have to have a use for the meat other than your own consumption. Chicken, on the whole, is much cheaper to raise and just as much work to butcher. And you get much more meat out of a chicken at 12 weeks than a rabbit. So, we've been researching things like using it for cat food. there are some great recipes for organic cat food and rabbit seems to be a favorite so we may try that out. And, of course, being able to use the pelts to make things helps defray the cost as well. The pelts were washed well and frozen for tanning in a few weeks. I can't wait to try it and I'll provide a step-by-step of that process.

Last, but never least.....coffee cake! The best sour cream coffee cake recipe I've found yet. Delish and so easy!  See those missing pieces....ya, that was me. :)

Here's the recipe:

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream(or, in my case, whatever you have left that you don't want to go bad :)
2 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
3 teaspoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
walnuts or almonds, optional

In a large bowl cream together the butter, sugar and sour cream. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Combine dry ingredients (except the brown sugar,cinnamon and nuts) and beat well.
Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon for the topping. If you have walnuts or almonds you would add it to this topping mixture. Generously grease a tube pan and put about 1/3 of the topping mixture in the bottom. Add about 1/2 of the batter on top of that. Put the remaining topping mixture on the batter layer and then top that with the remaining batter. Bake in a 350F degree oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Make sure to put your oven rack up high so the topping at the bottom of the pan is less likely to brown too much. If you like icing on the top combine powdered sugar with a couple of tablespoons of milk and a little vanilla(the amounts of these are really to taste and not specific). Whip up well and drizzle over the top of the cake while still a little warm but not hot. Enjoy!


Well, I think I've updated things for now. Off to shovel, check on chicks, dishes, laundry...and just where did I leave those 2 kids!?!

Pickin Chickens

Did I mention we are expecting chicks? Well, they're here! Some of them anyway. Here are the ones that are left.

We ordered 25 brown egg layers from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Their prices were reasonable and they had a lot of choices. They even threw in a "rare chick" with our order. Of course...we have no idea which one it is.  We have no idea what any of them are!

We used an Graco portable crib that we had as a brooder. We, of course, removed all the children first. ;)  We have our heat lamp up above (red bulb) and they are in the basement with the woodstove so it's cozy warm. We made sure that each one of them drank water and they all know where the food is. Some are eating better than others. And some of them are scaring the heck out of us because they stop and sleep almost instantly! lol

We have 15 left that made it through shipping. Since we are in the middle of an ice storm and frigid cold I am surprised that any of them made it. Eight were gone before we even opened the box and two followed with-in 1 hour. One suddenly passed several hours later. There are two that have us concerned and we are tending to them continuously. We made a mash out of the chicken starter and some sugar water and it seemed to perk all of them up. We are getting replacements next week for all the goners so kudos to McMurrays for good service.

Searching around the internet for pictures of chicks so we can try to identify the specific breeds has been fun. So many of them look alike at this age that we decided just to wait and figure it out when they grow up. Feel free to identify them if you can! :)